intelligentsia. This is a social strata,
not a class, outside of the working
class and the petty bourgeoisie,
but with ties to the different social
classes in a given society and
social system.
With the development of the
productive forces and the
increased demand for a better
educated labour force, and with
improved possibilities of education,
this group has increased
significantly.
Like the labour aristocracy, the
intelligentsia as a social stratum
may be subdivided into three main
categories, according to their class
affiliations.
A large part of the lowest layer
of intellectuals is more and more
proletarianised. This means that
their life and working conditions
increasingly resemble those of the
working class in general, no matter
whether they are privately or
publicly employed. This also means
that they are very harassed and
have uncertain work conditions, low
wages and attrition.
This is true of large profe-
ssions like school and kindergarten
teachers, nurses and others.
During recent years public
employees have waged strong
struggles for their demands or
have been locked out by their
employers in the state apparatus,
local regions and communities.
This was the case with the lockout
of the teachers and the closing of
public schools in 2013, when a
social democratic led government
sent the teachers home and closed
the schools. As this did not break
the fighting spirit of the teachers,
they passed legislation making the
employers’ demands the law. The
public employers are the same as
the (elected) politicians on different
levels.
The lower ranks of the
intellectuals – such as students in
general – are close allies of the
working class, and in times of acute
class struggle many of them are
won to the side of the workers.
Feb, March - 2019
The upper part of academic
top officials, the highest echelons
of the judicial and executive power,
the CEOs of public enterprises –
as for instance managers of
hospitals and universities – are
socially entwined with the
bourgeoisie, with whom they share
conditions. This upper quite
swollen layer serves the interests
of the ruling class unconditionally.
Between these two groups are
several categories of people who
have not made it to the top of
society, but who may one day be
the right hand of the boss; the next
have a time limited project
employment, and the third be
unemployed with a big debt. They
struggle for career and position, a
situation they share with parts of
the petty bourgeoisie.
Due to their objective
conditions of life and work the
intelligentsia has no independent
class position, but has some
specific features making it
susceptible to opportunism, and at
times to waver between the main
classes of capitalist society, the
bourgeoisie and the working class.
This is true of its individualism
and the fact that knowledge in
capitalism is a private value, an
asset
in
the
opportunist
competition for jobs and career, or
else used as private property. This
also means a certain susceptibility
to illusions and an inclination
towards the easy way.
Thus
petty
bourgeois
intellectuals along with labour
aristocrats may spread opportunist
and reformist ideas and theories in
the workers’ movement, and
indeed also in the communist party.
On the other hand, revolutionary
intellectuals who join the working
class and its cause are of great
importance to the struggle of the
proletariat and its party. The
communist movement is and has
been joined by many great
revolutionary intellectuals and
outstanding cultural figures who
have used their creative powers to
advance the working class struggle
for socialism.
The communist party lives and
fights in the midst of bourgeois
society, at all times surrounded and
attacked by furious anticommunist
or anti-revolutionary propaganda
and by the hostile activities of its
enemies. It is a part of the existing
society and is in touch with and
affected by the social classes and
strata of this society.
Therefore the question of the
class composition of the party is so
important, making it imperative to
secure a decisive majority of
workers in the ranks of the party.
April, 2018
Homage to Mrinal Sen
Mrinal Sen was born in Faridpur district, East Bengal. Rudolf
Arnheim’s “Film as Art”, a book on film aesthetics, created in him
theoretical interest in cinema. From 1943 to 1947, he was involved with
the Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA). The long and glittering
trajectory of Mrinal’s films stretches from “Raatbhore” (1955) to “Amar
Bhuvan” (2002). Mrinal followed the Italian communist Elio Vittarini’s
dictum of the 1940s : “The point is not to pocket the truth, but to chase
the truth”. Being a Marxist, Mrinal was close to the people and the
poor. His films were marked by political analysis, protests and a study
of the socio-economic conditions. The political quartet emerged with
“Interview” (1971), where a man loses his job as he cannot afford to
buy a suit. “Calcutta 71” (1972) studies 40 years in the history of social
deprivation, told with Brechtian rigour. “Padatik” (1973) makes an
analysis of the extreme left. “Chorus” (1974) with a surfeit of barbed
wires and police in uniform, cries out against repression. Along with his
contemporaries like Satyajit Ray and Ritwik Ghatak, Mrinal built up
the parallel cinema in India. The”Class Struggle” pays revolutionary
homage to Mrinal Sen.
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